The law of wills and trusts
Part of a series on the common law
Inheritence
Intestacy  · Testator  · Probate
Power of appointment
Simultaneous death  · Slayer rule
Disclaimer of interest
Types of will
Holographic will  · Will contract
Joint wills and mutual wills
Parts of a will
Codicil  · Attestation clause
Incorporation by reference
Residuary clause
Problems of property disposition
Lapse and anti-lapse
Ademption  · Abatement
Acts of independent significance
Elective share  · Pretermitted heir
Contesting a will
Testamentary capacity  · Undue influence
Trusts
Pour-over will  · Spendthrift trust
Charitable trust  · Cy pres doctrine
Resulting trust  · Constructive trust
Honorary trust
Other areas of the common law
Contract law  · Tort law  · Property law
Criminal law  · Evidence
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In the statutory law of wills and trusts, an attestation clause is a clause that is typically appended to a will, often just below the place of the testator's signature. Its purpose is to allow the will to be admitted to probate without affidavits from the attesting witnesses to be submitted to the probate court along with the will itself. A will containing an attestation clause is often called a self-proved will. Image File history File links Legal portal image File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... Corruption Jurisprudence Philosophy of law Law (principle) List of legal abbreviations Legal code Intent Letter versus Spirit Natural Justice Natural law Religious law Witness intimidation Legal research External links Wikibooks Wikiversity has more about this subject: School of Law Look up law in Wiktionary, the free dictionary Law, Legal Definitions... In the law, a will or testament is a document by which a person (the testator) regulates the rights of others over his property or family after death. ... The law of trusts and estates is generally considered the body of law which governs the management of personal affairs and the disposition of property of an individual in anticipation and the event of such persons incapacity or death, also known as the law of successions in civil law. ... This article concerns the common-law legal system, as contrasted with the civil law legal system; for other meanings of the term, within the field of law, see common law (disambiguation). ... Intestacy refers to the body of common law that determines who is entitled to the property of a dead person in the absence of a last will and testament or other binding declaration. ... A testator is a person who has made a legally binding will or testament, which specifies what is to be done with that persons family and/or property after death. ... Probate is the legal process of settling a dead persons estate: specifically, distributing the decedents property. ... In the law, a will or testament is a document by which a person (the testator) regulates the rights of others over his property or family after death. ... A holographic will is an unwitnessed will and testament written by the testator personally, rather than being prepared by a lawyer, another person acting on the testators behalf, or from a pre-printed form. ... In the law, a will or testament is a document by which a person (the testator) regulates the rights of others over his property or family after death. ... Codicil can refer to: An addition made to a will Any addition or appendix, such as a corollary to a theorem A poem by Derek Walcott This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ... Lapse and anti-lapse are complementary concepts under the law of wills, which address the disposition of property that is willed to someone who dies before the testator (the writer of the will). ... Ademption is a term used in the law of wills to determine what happens when property bequested under a will is no longer in the testators estate when the testator dies. ... Abatement (derived through the French abattre, from the Late Latin battere, to beat), a beating down or diminishing or doing away with; a term used especially in various legal phrases. ... The doctrine of acts of independent significance, in the common law of wills, permits the testator to effectively change the disposition of her property without changed her will, if acts or events with relation to the property itself have some significance beyond avoiding the requirements of the will. ... An elective share is a term used in American law relating to inheritance, which describes a proportion of an estate which the surviving spouse of the deceased may claim in place of what they were left in the decedents will. ... A pretermitted heir is a term used in the law of property to describe a person who would likely stand to inherit under a will, except that the testator (the person who wrote the will) did not know or did not know of the party at the time the will... A will contest, in the law of property, is a formal objection raised against the validity of a will, based on the contention that the will does not reflect the actual intent of the testator (the party who made the will). ... Undue influence (as a term in jurisprudence) is an equitable doctrine that involves one person taking advantage of a position of power over another person. ... In common law legal systems, a trust is a relationship in which a person or entity (the trustee) has legal control over certain property (the trust property or trust corpus), but is bound by a fiduciary duty to exercise that legal control for the benefit of someone else (the beneficiary... A pour-over will is a testamentary device wherein the writer of a will creates a trust, and decrees in the will that the property in his estate at the time of his death shall be placed in the trust. ... A charitable trust is a trust organized to serve private or public charitable purposes. ... The cy pres doctrine (pronounced as see-pray) is doctrine of the Court of equity. ... In common law legal systems, a trust is a relationship in which a person or entity (the trustee) has legal control over certain property (the trust property or trust corpus), but is bound by fiduciary duty to exercise that legal control for the benefit of someone else (the beneficiary), according... A constructive trust is a legal device used by courts sitting in equity to resolve claims raised by a plaintiff whose property has been converted to a profitable use by the defendant. ... A contract is any promise or set of promises made by one party to another for the breach of which the law provides a remedy. ... In the common law, a tort is a civil wrong for which the law provides a remedy. ... Property law is the law that governs the various forms of ownership in real property (land as distinct from personal or moveable possessions) and in personal property, within the common law legal system. ... Criminal law (also known as penal law) is the body of law that punishes criminals for committing offences against the state. ... The law of evidence governs the use of testimony (eg. ... A statute is a formal, written law of a country or state, written and enacted by its legislative authority, perhaps to then be ratified by the highest executive in the government, and finally published. ... In the law, a will or testament is a document by which a person (the testator) regulates the rights of others over his property or family after death. ... The term trust has several meanings: In general, trust refers to an aspect of a relationship between two parties, by which a given situation is mutually understood, and commitments are made toward actions in favor of a desired outcome. ... A testator is a person who has made a legally binding will or testament, which specifies what is to be done with that persons family and/or property after death. ... Probate is the legal process of settling a dead persons estate: specifically, distributing the decedents property. ... An affidavit is a formal sworn statement of fact, written down, signed, and witnessed (as to the veracity of the signature) by a taker of oaths, such as a notary public. ... Probate Court is a court found in some juridictions which is primarily concerned with the proper distribution of the assets of a descendant. ...

Attestation clauses were introduced into probate law with the promulgation of the first version of the Model Probate Code in the 1940s. Before the introduction of the concept, when a will was offered to probate, an affidavit from one or both of the witnesses was typically required, affirming that the will offered to the court was indeed the document that the testator had signed. The requirement of these affidavits caused delay in the administering of estates, occasioned by the need to track down the witnesses or puzzle out their illegible handwriting; often, the witnesses had moved or died themselves. An attestation clause, in effect, appends a form of affidavit to the will itself. A typical attestation clause reads: // Events and trends The 1940s were dominated by World War II, the most destructive armed conflict in history. ...

We, the undersigned testator and the undersigned witnesses, respectively, whose names are signed to the attached or foregoing instrument declare:

(1) that the testator executed the instrument as the testator's will;

(2) that, in the presence of both witnesses, the testator signed or acknowledged the signature already made or directed another to sign for the testator in the testator's presence;

(3) that the testator executed the will as a free and voluntary act for the purposes expressed in it;

(4) that each of the witnesses, in the presence of the testator and of each other, signed the will as a witness;

(5) that the testator was of sound mind when the will was executed; and

(6) that to the best knowledge of each of the witnesses the testator was, at the time the will was executed, at least eighteen (18) years of age or was a member of the armed forces or of the merchant marine of the United States or its allies.

This attestation clause is modelled on the Model Probate Code's version. Statutes that authorize self-proved wills typically provide that a will that contains this language will be admitted to probate without affidavits from the attesting witnesses. Many states allow attestation clauses to be added as codicils to wills that were originally drafted without them. Codicil can refer to: An addition made to a will Any addition or appendix, such as a corollary to a theorem A poem by Derek Walcott This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ...

Reference

• Burns' Annotated Indiana Statutes, ss. 29-1-5-3.1